There was huge unrest at the Sree Kerala Varma College in Kerala’s Thrissur after the student union election results were declared on November 1. After recounting, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – the Student Federation of India (SFI) – was declared as having won the post of chairperson, defeating the Congress’s student wing, Kerala Students Union (KSU), after recounting. However, the KSU has alleged foul play and decided to move the High Court against the results.

Aloshious Xavier, the state president of the KSU, began a hunger strike against the election result, and submitted a complaint to the Vice Chancellor of Calicut University, under which the college falls.

Initially, the KSU candidate Sreekuttan Sivadasan, who is blind, was declared as the winner of the chairperson post. He had earned 896 votes, which was, in the first counting, one more than the number of votes won by the SFI candidate KS Anirudhan. After this, the KSU as well as the Congress celebrated their victory, because they were winning an election at Sree Kerala Varma after a gap of 41 years. But the SFI demanded recounting of votes, which began at 5.30 pm on the same day. The counting went on till midnight because of a disrupted power supply. The KSU boycotted the recounting. It was 12.30 am on November 2 when the result was announced a second time and Anirudhan was declared as having won by 11 votes, reversing the earlier result.

The KSU alleged that the re-counting was not conducted properly. “The teachers who were present in the counting room were members of the Left-affiliated teachers’ union and they made the KSU’s valid votes invalid and the SFI’s invalid votes valid,” Sreekuttan alleged.

Tensions rose in the campus soon after the allegation was made, and a police team was deployed to maintain peace. The KSU leaders also alleged that the power went off two or three times during the recounting amid which a few SFI members entered the counting room and used duplicate ballots to manipulate the results. The SFI said that they demanded recounting because both candidates gathered an almost equal number of votes.

The principal in charge of the college TD Sobha said that there were directives from the Cochin Devaswom Board, which governs the college, for the recounting. According to The Hindu report, the devaswom board president president MK Sudharshan said that he directed the procedure as per rules to avoid complications.

Many Congress leaders also took issue with the midnight recounting. Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan wrote on his Facebook page that Sreekuttan’s victory was the decision of students and it is the victory of democracy. The SFI sabotaged the victory through midnight counting and the politically biased faculty also supported that, he said. The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President K Sudhakaran, KPCC Vice President and former Member of Legislative Assembly VT Balram and other Congress leaders also posted on social media against the recounting.